intrepid

Open world dungeons, node tending, and other pre-alpha adventures were all part and parcel of Ashes of Creation’s developer livestream last week. The team showed off 52 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay that included exploration, various features, and a ton of action combat.

The team answered many community questions on the livestream, including how the current build was tailored specifically for testers: “We wanted people who were coming in to test to actually be able to kind of do stuff solo. So, it’s not what it was really built for. All the group content right now is just in our dungeons. And that’s totally going to change when we go live.”

I don’t outright resent PvP from being in MMOs, but as a primarily PvE player, it concerns me to see a flood of this washing over titles that I would otherwise have no reservations about playing. Many of the worlds and mechanics of these games have appeal, but not at the expense of having some jerk ambush me and kill me in 1.5 seconds flat at any moment.

Heck, even Sea of Thieves’ piracy gameplay loop has triggered alarms in my head that captains will be looking to swarm the title with griefing tactics once they’re done playing the “proper” way.

Maybe I’m overreacting. How do you feel about the increased focus on PvP in upcoming MMOs? Why do you think we are seeing a rise of such games?

For Ashes of Creation fans, January has provided a video bonanza to help with the lengthy wait to beta and launch. Last week we were treated to a look at the game’s surprisingly beautiful Underrealm, and this week it’s a hands-on romp through the world.

IGN took a developer tour of the game this week, noting that while there were (presumably) placeholder kill 10 rats quests and a lack of many standard features in the pre-alpha, the combat was “punchy” and the non-instanced dungeon an exciting concept.

You can watch some of this tour after the break. It may not be the most in-depth video ever, but there is plenty of eye candy and combat to behold.

What’s Ashes of Creation been up to since that confusing alpha zero rollout back in December, the official class matrix, and the fan Q&A? Working, of course. And that’s on display in a video published last night exploring the world’s UnderRealm. It’s a spooky, glowy, psychedelic, bio-luminescent forest sort of biome that may have those of you with kids humming Trolls.

“We are happy to show a first iteration of our UndeRealm in Ashes of Creation! The team is hard at work and in full production on the world of Verra. This is a first look at the pre-alpha UnderRealm and the difference of look and feel that this area will have from the world above ground. Enjoy, and see you in game soon!”

Have a burning curiosity about pixies, testing, and soundtracks? They might have been answered yesterday. In the span of an hour, the Ashes of Creation team tackled around 30 player questions in a developer livestream on Twitch in addition to giving viewers an early look at the first iteration of the Underrealm and Dunir dungeon.

Topics covered in the livestream include the death of the quicktime bar, Fae pets, the persistent nature of the Alpha 2 servers, class balance, tameable mounts, climbable trees, bards, bots, and gold sellers.

The team said that the next phase of its Alpha Zero testing is coming next week and will include more people on the server. So far, the “raw” test has provided a lot of useful feedback that’s kept the team busy doing “tons and tons” of optimizations.

“We are agile and we are so focused on getting things done,” Jeffrey Bard reported. Steven Sharif added that the game production is “slightly ahead or are in a better position than I anticipated we would be in at this point.”

Here’s something interesting to chew on today: Kickstarter actually had an incredible 2017 when it came to funding games and raising money. Head of Games Luke Crane tweeted that the platform was up year-over-year in both of these categories.

“Games on @Kickstarter in 2017: $172M pledged ($163M raised); 7033 launched projects (2997 successfully funded projects); 767K backers (726K backers to successful projects),” he said. “Good job y’all. A huge year for the community. That’s the most games projects funded on Kickstarter in any year to date! And the money exceeds 2016’s funding by +29%.”

Last week, we posted a rundown of the most popular MMORPG articles of 2017, calculated strictly by the number of pageviews they got. Today, we’re going to take a look at the most popular articles of 2017 as measured by comments, which provides an entirely different overview of the year and the genre.

This list is a little wonky as we couldn’t keep a lot of our January comments when we were booted off Livefyre. (Some of the old comments were restored, but others were simply lost because Livefyre wasn’t properly saving them back. Long story.) So technically, we lost a month. Still, I think we have a pretty good picture of what people really truly want to talk about (which isn’t always the same thing you like to click on!).

I didn’t back a single video game in 2017, which is a first for me. The year before, I backed Hero’s Song, and we all know how that ended. I’m looking forward to a few of the games I backed actually coming to fruition this year, like Crowfall and Shroud of the Avatar, while others, like TUG, I just figure represent money I’ll never see paid back in game form. Lesson learned, right?

It’s not as though there weren’t epic games rolling out last year, either; Ashes of Creation, one of the biggest MMOs ever on Kickstarter, owned a lot of headlines last year and it looks really great, but ultimately I decided that I’d just rather wait until it’s actually ready before leaping in. I’m not swearing off the platform on purpose, just more willing to be cautious and patient. Others of you, I know, are over and done with Kickstarter, either because you’re fed up or because you’ve been genuinely burned. And still others are hoping for a revolution in the genre and will gladly throw money at it – if it will just show up.

Welcome to a special edition of Make My MMO, Massively OP’s regular recap of what’s going on in crowdfunded MMOs, which we do specifically for those of you who are convinced Kickstarter is the absolute worst (it’s not) and that no crowdfunded MMOs ever launch (they do). Plus, somebody’s got to keep an eye on what your money’s up to! Tonight’s edition isn’t going to be our usual recap of the last couple of weeks, however; we’re going to look at the most important MMO crowdfunding news of the entire year. Lock up your wallets and let’s get to it.

With 2017 drawing to a close and 2018 rushing up to meet us, the Massively OP team has regrouped for another round of bold and goofy predictions for the year ahead. We’re feeling pretty good after our fairly successful predictions from last year! What’s in store for the MMO genre next year? Here’s what we think.

On this week’s show, Bree and Justin throw snowballs, beat up grinches, unwrap presents, and generally save Christmas the way they do every year. It’s our last pre-holiday show, so listen in and get on top of all of the last-minute activity from studios before they go on break!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

Now that Ashes of Creation is officially in its alpha testing, players will be able to discover for themselves what awaits in this interesting fantasy sandbox. One of these discoveries will no doubt be in the class system that Intrepid has concocted.

In the past, we’ve been critical over the somewhat generic-sounding class names (such as “Tank” and “Fighter”), but it turns out that these are only the start of your class identity. Players will actually choose a secondary class down the line that will transform their character into one of 64 blended classes. These include much more interesting-sounding names like Spellsword, Nightshield, Charlatan, Hawkeye, Falconer, Wild Blade, Apostle, and Songcaller. And while the primary class can’t be changed, players will have the option of switching up their secondaries if so desired.

“Today, as we begin our Friends and Family Alpha Zero test, we wanted to show you just how diverse we expect our playing field to be,” Intrepid said. “The classes adhere to roles like tanking, DPS, support, and healing, but it’s really so much more than that. Each one must provide a true fantasy fulfillment for the player — you want to be a badass, no matter what your class. And that’s a promise we intend to keep.”

Check out the class combination chart and Alpha Zero developer gameplay video after the break.